Next up in our 20th Anniversary of NBA Live content, it's a retrospective of NBA Live 2005!

NBA Live 2005 is considered by many long-time basketball gamers to be the best game in the NBA Live series, or at the very least, somewhere in the top five. Personally, I'd fall into the latter category. It was a great game in its time and definitely a high point in the series, but it has a few issues that are glossed over a little. It's still capable of providing a fun sim-oriented experience however, and is obviously significant as the first game in the series to feature All-Star Weekend mode. Let's take a look back at the second game in a trilogy of strong releases for NBA Live.

Although very similar, I'd say I liked 06 a bit better. 2005 set a great standard to build on, though and it is the only basketball game that I know of that got all of the jerseys and jersey numbers and letter correct

As someone who plays franchise modes 90% of the time, the biggest addition for me in Live 2005 was by far the Sim Intervention option. Accommodates both my short attention span and desire for realistic scores.

It was a cool feature. I was impressed when I played the game first, back in 2005. This game was also my first ever basketball game, when I was 8 years old. I remember that I tried to bring up Kings '96 split alternate by dragging the picture of a Mitch Richmond jersey to the execution file. LMAO. That's how I got interested in modding.